Her Hearth is Atlantis
by Piper Julian
Summary: Poseidon may have saved Sally from Gabe, but he also became the reason why she had to return to him. A look into the complex relationship between Poseidon and Sally.


Her Hearth is Atlantis

Rated T: For brief mentions of past abuse.

There were days when the city was overbearing and the skyscrapers were the bars to her cage. There was no ocean here, nor any great bodies of water. She could not run to the sea and beg for release from this awful prison.

Perhaps it was karma. As a girl, barely into her twenties, she had wished for love and received it. Poseidon had always told her that Aphrodite gave the worst of love lives to the ones she liked. She, for a brief but foolish stint of time, believed the god to be wrong. Now she was stuck here to suffer the consequences of falling so deeply in love with the god of the seas.

From the very moment they met Poseidon had been a hero in Sally's eyes. He happened to be close by when her boyfriend at the time, Gabe, attempted to beat her at what they both thought was a secluded spot on the beach. In truth, all Sally remembered of that day was staring into sea-green eyes as she was engulfed in a caressing wave that removed all of her physical wounds and listening to him talk to her.

"_I can't believe you would stay in the company of a mortal who reeks enough to dissuade the most powerful of monsters from coming any closer," _the god had said, smiling at the flabbergasted woman.

At the time, Sally was unable to form a coherent sentence to respond. But what Poseidon had said to her would be the first thing she would later recall when the god left her with a son and the warning of powerful evils seeking to murder her baby.

While Poseidon may have saved her from Gabe initially, he became the reason she had to return to him. For a year of happiness she received a decade of abuse. Knowing that Gabe had the ability to stop ancient evils from noticing Percy was what tied her to the city and to her own personal tyrant.

For Percy, and because of Poseidon, Sally put her dreams of writing on hold in order to save her child. She had to become subservient to Gabe and that required that she take a post beneath even his social standing. But she did it. Percy was the only connection she had left to a happier time and she would be damned if she let anyone take him away from her.

Even with her mind filled with the thoughts of her son, there would be times when she could feel the sea calling to her. The need to go back to a blissful and familiar setting was too powerful. She wanted to be by the water. That way, she could pretend that she was just a stroll away from Poseidon. She knew that it was not the god calling her to him, but her own futile hope that he would return to her that made her long for the sea.

By the time Percy was six, Sally had come to the conclusion that she was just another mortal to Poseidon. She was just one more carrier for his children- one who would never be recognized in the tombs of mythology or the questionable pages of _Wikipedia_. She felt like she had been taken for a fool.

As she sank into depression and accepted what life had dealt her, Poseidon watched from afar.

Whilst Sally would never know it, she was not just another woman in Poseidon's life. It was for this very reason that, when Percy was off saving the world, Poseidon went to Aphrodite and begged her to give Sally the happiness she deserved.

Poseidon knew full well that he would never be able to continue his relationship with Percy's mother. He also feared that by making her immortal he would turn their relationship into a monstrosity filled with infidelity and bitterness. He never wanted to see the beautiful and pure Sally Jackson turn into someone like Hera. He could also not condemn her to watch her only son age and die.

So when Poseidon went to Aphrodite, he requested that she bring a new man into Sally's life. A normal man, who could accept Percy and provide companionship for Sally. For this, Aphrodite set her eyes on a man named Paul.

Paul was almost perfect. He had an inquisitive streak in him and a passion for language. He became a beacon of light in Sally's life. His faith in her ability as a writer and his love of her gave Sally the strength she needed to move on in her life after Gabe and after _Poseidon_.

But Paul was only _almost_ perfect for Sally. Poseidon watched as they laughed and they joked but never connected at the level he once had with Sally. The god knew that Sally would still always long to be by water. He knew that she would always stare out to the ocean with a longing that even she did not quite understand.

But in some ways, Poseidon could never compare to Paul. Yes, he, a god, inferior to a mortal. Paul could be there for Sally when she needed him. Paul could grow old with Sally. Paul could stay with Sally. Paul could avoid breaking her heart.

So as Poseidon sat in his underwater palace, he wrestled with the knowledge that he was the only one who could truly free Sally from her metropolitan cage. He was the only one who could quell her longing. While Sally thought her heart belonged by the shore, Poseidon knew it sought out Atlantis.

But as a mortal, Sally would over time forget the skyscrapers were the bars to her cage. She would fall in love with Paul and be loved in return. She would learn to accept that she did not need a god to be happy.

And so, Poseidon watched as the woman he truly loved lived happily ever after without him and he would force himself to summon the strength to stop himself from fading away.

**The End.**

I hoped you enjoyed my first attempt of Percy Jackson fiction. I strayed a bit from canon, but I wanted to explore the relationship between Percy's parents. I wrote this with information from up to the fourth book, so any new insight that may have been provided between Poseidon and Sally is disregarded.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my one-shot.


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